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ELECTION OF SPEAKER. 


wJSL'SL* SPEECH 


HON. H. WINTER DAVIS, 


OF MARYLAND. 

DELIVERED 

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 
FEBRUARY 21, 1860. 




The House being in the Committee of the Whole on the state of the Union— 
Mr. DAVIS, of Maryland, said: 

Mr. Chairman : The honorable the Legislature of Maryland has 
decorated me with its censure. It is my purpose to acknowledge 
that compliment. 

It is long, sir, since the party which now controls the Legisla¬ 
ture of Maryland has been so fortunate as to have a majority in 
both its branches; and it has so conducted itself that it is proba¬ 
ble it will be long ere again it succeeds in getting that control. 

If one may judge from the course and conduct of that body, 
the gentlemen who compose it are perhaps more surprised at their 
present power than their opponents. They do not appear to be 
tess bewildered or more to have changed their original nature 
than Christopher© Sly, when waking up, after his debauch, in the 
nobleman’s chamber, dazzled with the unaccustomed elegance 
which surrounded him, lie began to question himself thus: 

“ Am I a lord? and have I such a lady? 

Or do I dream ? or have I dream’d till now ? 

I do not sleep; I see, I hear, I speak; 

I smell sweet savors, and I feel soft things; 

Upon my life, I am a lord, indeed; 

And not a tinker, nor Christophero Sly. 

Well, bring our lady hither to our sight; 

And once again , a pot o’ the smallest ale” 

Sudden elevation has never changed the character of the per¬ 
son accidentally raised to a position he was never intended by 
nature to occupy; and those who imagine it ever can may free 
themselves from that delusion by looking at the Legislature of 

Printed by Lemuel Towers, at $1 00 per hundred copies. 












* ' " ♦ » V % ^ x \ \ \ J 

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Maryland. That majority, which now presumes to represent the 
people of Maryland, are as much out of place in her legislative 
halls as was Christophero in the lordly chamber; and they retain 
and reveal their natural instincts and ability as did Christophero 
his preferance for the smallest ale over sack. 

There is no department of legislation to which, in the brief 
period of their power, they have not applied their fingers; audit 
would be doing them injustice to say that there is any they have 
adorned. 

Greatly deficient in that first quality which constitutes the leg¬ 
islator—sound practical comihon sense—they abound in that 
genius of ignorance which so amazed and delighted Montesquieu’s 
Persian in the Parisian professors—a genius which enabled them 
to undertake to practice and teach, with the utmost confidence, 
arts and sciences of which they knew nothing. 

Inexperienced in the forms of legislation, it was certainly pru¬ 
dent that they should be attended in the caucus, where, instead 
of the committee, their laws are matured by learned attorneys,, 
not members of either House, for else their blunders might betray 
their ignorance; yet, in spite of this wise precaution, this Legis¬ 
lature has worthily earned for itself a place beside that Lack- 
Learning Parliament, whereat Lord Coke says there was never a 
good law passed. 

Hot .elevated to the full sense of the dignity and responsibility 
of their high place by the great memories which surround them 
in the State House where daily they meet—where once the great 
Congress of the Revolution sat, and where George Washington 
surrendered his sword, that the law T might thenceforth reign— 

1 the caucus is the Legislature, the Legislature the recording clerk 
for the dictates of the caucus; debate is silenced and considera¬ 
tion is banished. At a suggestion from partisans out of doors, 
the sacred rights of a great city are sacrificed; every responsi¬ 
bility surrounding legislation is gone; and the result has been 
such a series of legislative measures as will, perhaps, revive in 
the memories of the people of Maryland the fading sense of the 
greatness of the calamity inflicted upon them when Democrats 
control a majority in both branches of their Legislature. 

Since, sir, they have seen fit to honor me with their censure, it 
is fit that this high and honorable body should have the means a 
little more in detail of appreciating the weight of that censure. 

Ambitious of the reputation of Justinian, and not enlightened 
by the great jurists which surrounded his throne, the General 
Asssembly of Maryland, in the first few days, not of their consul¬ 
tation, not of their consideration, but of their session, adopted, 
without reading it, and in profound ignorance of its provision, a 
code defining the rights of person and of property of every citi¬ 
zen of the State of Maryland; and a great part of the residue of 
the brief period assigned them by the constitution has been occu¬ 
pied in repealing and altering the code they had just adopted. 

Anxious to overrule the popular will and touch the fruits of 


3 


political success, where political success is not likely to be'attain¬ 
ed by the will of the people, they have been exceedingly desirous 
to empty some of the offices which, in Baltimore, were filled by 
the popular vote; and evidence having been taken in contests 
between members of the Legislature and persons claiming their 
seats, the honorable the committee of the body of which I am 
speaking, so cognizant of the laws of the land, so aware of the 
rights of justice, and so anxious to give them full effect, allows 
that evidence, taken behind the backs of gentlemen whose offices 
are contested, to be put in against them, upon the witnesses 
merely identifying their depositions formerly taken. Perhaps 
they were conscious, Mr. Chairman, that some witnesses cannot 
safely be resworn after the lapse of a reasonable time. 

In the midst of the excitement in the country upon the negro 
question, it is not surprising that they have some men among 
them anxious to follow the deplorable example which has been 
set recently elsewhere, shocking to the sensibilities of the great 
mass of the people of Maryland, of reducing into slavery the men 
that our fathers freed. That such a measure is now depending 
before that Legislature, and receiving such consideration as it can 
give to anything, instead of having been instantly rejected, or 
leave to bring it in refused, this, sir, would be cause of great sur¬ 
prise in any other Legislature assembled in Maryland. But, s’ir, 
I fear that nothing but the unanimous shriek of indignation which 
rung from one end of Maryland to the other averted the danger 
of the passage of some such despotic and oppressive measure, and 
one seriously and rashly unsettling the industrial interests of 
Maryland. 

From these few circumstances, perhaps, we may begin to di¬ 
vine something of the character of that honorable body and the 
scope of its legislative sagacity. They are still more careful pf 
southern rights. They boast themselves their sole guardians in 
Maryland. They are diligent and not unsuccessful students of 
the debates of this House. They were smitten with admiration 
of the resolution offered—and so long debated in this House—by 
the honorable gentleman, my friend from Missouri, (Mr. Clark.) 
A bill was pending before the Legislature of Maryland for the 
purpose of disfranchising a great city refractory to the Democratic 
yoke. Certain respectable attorneys, knowing as much of con¬ 
stitutional law as is comprised in the art of special pleading, as¬ 
pired to apply these microscopic principles of their favorite art to 
the construction of the constitution, and the.result of that novel 
application was a bill which annulled by evasion, and repealed 
by direct enactment of the' Legislature, some of the most funda¬ 
mental provisions of the constitution itself. Accepted at the 
hands of its legal originators, by the caucus—if ever read, yet 
never understood, by the majority in either House—it was about 
to receive the confirmation of the Legislature, when a grave omis¬ 
sion was discovered. It said nothing about the negro question. 
That was beyond the province of special pleading; and the Leg 


4 


islature rashly tried their ’prentice hand on a proviso. They 
solemnly incorporated in the bill the following clause: 

“ Provided , That no Black Republican, or indorser or supporter of the Helper 
book, shall be appointed to any office under the said board.” 

Upon its passage, the yeas and nays were called and recorded; 
but I should not perform a grateful task were I to rescue their 
names from their native oblivion and spread them on the face of 
the debates of this House. 

The proviso was the fit cap and bells for such a bill. Its pro¬ 
visions deprived a great city of their constitutional right to self- 
government by a flagrant usurpation. It was fit that the men 
who were ambitious of the honor of passing that act should like¬ 
wise place in the bill the measure of their capacity, by enacting 
what they, with the same breath, condemned. Perhaps the most 
obnoxious portion of Helper’s book is the proscription of fellow- 
citizens for their opinions on slavery; and the proviso, for the 
first time in American legislation, excludes by law from a muni¬ 
cipal office all the members of the most numerous political party 
in the United States by their party name, and because of their 
political opinions ascribed to them by their enemies. The pro¬ 
viso does not confine its exclusion to the approvers of Helper’s 
work—itself sufficiently ridiculous—but deprives the honorable 
gentleman from Ohio, (Mr. Cjpt&wnr,) and the Speaker of this 
House, and the Governor of almost every free State, and over a 
million of voters, from all chance of promotion in the police de¬ 
partment of Baltimore. Possibly the people might not have se¬ 
lected them; but the Legislature apparently feared that their 
board of commissioners might. 

Their vigilance having been once awakened, they were not 
content with having thus protected the institutions of the people 
of Maryland against the wiles of this great northern party, by 
excluding them from the high and lucrative position of police¬ 
men. They w T ere called upon shortly afterwards to pass upon 
another measure, a city railroad for Baltimore—a dangerous con¬ 
trivance of northern ingenuity, which would cover with its net¬ 
work of tracks that great city, on whose cars thousands of people 
might come in contact daily with the conductors and directors, 
and by them, if not sound , the subtle poison of anti-slavery sen¬ 
timent might be diffused through all the streets and alleys of 
Baltimore, without anybody being the wiser. That sagacious and 
learned body, the Senate, having hurried through the code for 
the purpose of getting at those things which touch the vital inter¬ 
ests of the country, having before them this bill for the inaugu¬ 
ration of that great modern convenience in the city of Baltimore, 
thought that there likewise they should protect themselves by 
law against this poison in the atmosphere. And therefore it was 
provided, and now stands as a part of that bill— 

“ That no Black Bepublican. or indorser or approver of the Helper book, (laugh¬ 
ter,) shall receive any of the benefits and privileges of this act, or be employed in 
iiny capacity by the said railway company.” (Renewed laughter.) 


5 


I want honorable gentlemen upon this side of the House, the 
Helpcrites as well as others, to know, that when they pass home 
through the city of Baltimore they must he prepared, at the car 
doors, to deny their political principles, or lose the lightening 
train. (Laughter.) Disappointed office-seekers here can find em¬ 
ployment there only by apostacy, and secret trusts alone can 
secure Black Republican capital in this lucrative investment. 

Sir, in the course of a few days there was before the Legisla¬ 
ture another bill for the purpose of endowing an agricultural 
society for the State. An energetic, but not discreet, representa¬ 
tive of the dominant party rose and moved to apply this proviso 
to that bill. We all know that contamination does not spread so 
rapidly in the rural districts, as in our great cities, and some leg¬ 
islator, more sagacious than his brethren, reflected that there are 
Black Republicans who raise Morgan horses, and Durham cattle, 
and Southdown sheep, and Aldernevs, and that occasionally a 
Black Republican invents a plow, and that these things lessen 
the burden or enhance the profits of agricultural labor; and in 
singular contrast to the rest of their conduct, in a lucid interval, 
they actually voted down the proviso! 

But the Senate, having at this point made themselves, as the 
Frenchman would say, suspected, in spite of their earnest and 
disinterested guardianship of southern institutions, even at the 
expense of making themselves ridiculous, the House of Delegates 
next assumed the guardianship of the Representative upon this 
floor. They had passed a resolution, prior to the election of 
Speaker, which was intended to condemn beforehand any vote 
which should not be for some one of the honorable gentlemen 
from the Democratic'party. I knew it was aimed at me; for they 
knew that, highly as I respect those gentlemen ; eminently fit by 
knowledge and experience for that position as I know many of 
them to be; entire as is my confidence in their personal honor, to 
the extent of trusting my fortune, my life, and my honor in their 
hands, yet I did not consider them safe depositors for any of the 
political powers of this Government, and that all they could do 
would not make me waver one hair’s breadth from what they 
knew was my firm resolve. 

But it is unfortunate that the gentlemen upon that side of the 
legislative body are more devoted to study the Cincinnati plat¬ 
form than Blair’s Rhetoric or Whateley’s Rules of Lo^ic, and they 
became afflicted with that entire incapacity of saying anything 
which has not two meanings which so singularly characterizes the 
authors of that remarkable platform. They moved a resolution in 
such ambiguous terms, that my honorable friends in the Maryland 
Legislature thought it was a condemnation of the gentlemen on 
the Administration side of the House for not having elected the 
gentleman from North Carolina, for whom I cast my vote so per- 
severingly and so fruitlessly. I had intended to waive the benefit 
of the ambiguity. I intended to have responded to them in the 
sense of the gentleman who moved them, but events were so rapid 



6 


that, before I could have an opportunity to express my opinion of 
them, I was overwhelmed and oppressed by another. The elevation 
of the gentleman from Hew Jersey to the Speaker’s chair instantly 
revived all their earnestness for the protection of southern rights. 

My vote recalled to them that they were committed by what 
they had said before, to follow it up with an explicit condemna¬ 
tion of the act which had now been perpetrated. And thereupon, 
the honorable the House of Delegates of Maryland thus resolved: 

“ Resolved, by thb General Assembly of Maryland, That Henry Winter Davis, 
acting in Congress as one of the Representatives of this State”— 

Sir, it is greatly to be regretted that those gentlemen do not act 
in the Legislature of Maryland as representatives of Maryland— 

“ by his vote for Mr. Pennington”— 

They did not know his Christian name— 

‘‘the candidate of the Black Republican party”— 

Think, of it, Mr. Chairman! spread upon the statute book of 
Maryland forever! “ of the Black Republican party”-— 

“for the Speakership of the House of Representatives, has misrepresented the senti¬ 
ment of all parts of this State, and thereby forfeited the confidence of her people.” 

I respectfully tell the gentlemen who voted for that resolution 
to take back their message to their masters, and say that I speak 
to their masters face to face, and not through them. Sir, it lias 
always been the striking and marked peculiarity of that party 
which now accidentally, and only temporarily, predominates in 
the councils of Maryland, that they will allow no opportunity to 
pass of, what they call, “indicating their entire fealty to the 
Southand that, sir, always consists in exciting sectional strife, 
in mooting matters which men ought not to argue, in libeling 
their neighbors, in endeavoring to make them hateful and disgust¬ 
ing to tlieir fellow-citizens, in giving an advertisement to the 
whole country that everybody that is not a Democrat is an Aboli¬ 
tionist; and,that if any fanatics shall see fit at any time to come 
within the limits of a southern State for the purpose of shaking 
and unsettling the solid foundations of society, there would be 
found men who, if they feared to join them, would yet sympa¬ 
thize with them. Their whole policy is to poison the minds of 
our people against every man not a Democrat in the free States, 
to inspire them with distrust, apprehension, and terror, to teach 
them to look on the accession to power of any one called by the 
name of Republican as not merely a change of power frdm one 
to another political party, differing in principle and policy, but 
equally loyal to the United States, but as not far removed from 
such oppression and danger as to furnish just cause of seeking 
revolutionary, remedies. Their hope seems to be to retain power 
by the fears of one half the people for the existence of slavery, 
and ot the other half for the existence of the Union. Agitation, 
clamor, vituperation, audacious,and pertinacious, are their weapons 
of warfare. Of this spirit the Legislature of Maryland, as now 


? 


constituted, is tlie incarnation. It stands the embodiment of 
that terrific vision of the Fortress of Hell gate, who, to the eye 
of Milton, 



And they, as false to their mission as the Portress of Hell to 
hers, stand ready, for the purpose of.retaining their hold of 
power, to let loose on this blessed land the Satan of demoniacal 
passion. 

And then, sir, in the midst of these more noisy, boisterous and 
disturbing elements, there is a certain number of small, shriveled, 
restless beings, incapable of wielding the arms of logic or of 
reason, yet skillful to scratch with poisoned weapons. Of such 
are the honorable gentlemen who contrived the resolution. 

They supposed that I was so weak before my friends in Mary¬ 
land that they could take from me the confidence of that constitu¬ 
ency that has stood by me through good report and through evil 
report, while it blew a storm as well as when it was calm. Sir, 
I represent my constituents; and I know the people of Maryland 
even beyond the limits of my constituents better than these dab¬ 
blers in eternal agitation; and I say that, right or wrong, wise or 
unwise, honest in its motives or unfaithful in its motives, that vote 
of mine is, to-day, not only approved, but honored and applauded 
by every man whose opinion I regard. (Applause in the galle¬ 
ries.) I say that now, this day, I am stronger in my district and 
in the State of Maryland, in any appeal I may see fit to make to 
the people, on my vote for Speaker, than all the banded body of 
the Legislature bound into one man. And, sir, unless I am greatly 
deceived by the press of the southern Opposition, the American 
members of the Legislature are as little in sympathy with their 
political friends in the South as they are with the people of 
Maryland. 

Why, sir, what are the circumstances of that election? I, sir, 
have no apologies to make. I have no excuses to render. What 
I did, I did on my own judgment, and did not look across my 
shoulder to see what my constituents would think. I told my 
constituents that I would come here a free man, or not at all; and 
they sent me here on that condition. I told them that if they 
wanted a slave to represent them, they could get plenty; but I 
was not one. I told them that I had already passed through more 
than one difficult, complex, dangerous, session of Congress ; that 
I had been obliged, again and again, to do that which is least 
grateful to my feelings, to stand not merely opposed to my lion- 


8 


orable political opponents, but to stand alone among mj political 
friends without the strength and support which a public man re¬ 
ceives from being buoyed up breast-high by men of like senti¬ 
ments, elected on like principles, and who, if there be error, would 
stand as a shield and bulwark between him and his responsibility. 


H come 
vanted 
er, one 
willow 
)se the 


I foresaw the ~ 
when I woul 
my people tc 
who would £ 
when the sto 
material for 



; what 
is mo- 


Mr. Chair in 
I know was ml 
ment that, ha/ 



apologetic sta/_ o^umaneouSij, wmiu 


day tliat my constituents approve what I have done; and that, 
if not the lit reason for my doing so, is at least a consolation 
after doing it. 

The honorable gentlemen of the Legislature presume to know 
better what my constituents think than I do. They possibly will 
find out that they do not know so much about the honorable gen¬ 
tleman who occupies the Speaker’s chair as my constituents know. 
The objection made to me in the Maryland Legislature by the 
mover of one of the resolutions was, that I had not voted for my 
friend from Horth Carolina. The rapidity of the transit of infor¬ 
mation from Washington to Annapolis is apparent to any one. 
The diligence with which these self-constituted judges of my con¬ 
duct make themselves accpiainted with it, adds greatly to the 
weight of their condemnation. The care with which they studied 
the code before its passage, leads me to fear that they learn our 
proceedings chiefly from expurgated editions in their country 
neVspapers, via Allegheny and St. Mary’s. iSTot only no Demo¬ 
crat, but no American, could, or ventured, or cared, to correct the 
blunder. 

Thus ignorant of cotemporary events, it were unreasonable to 
expect them to know events twenty years old—to them a period 
beyond the memory of man or newspaper—the subject of tradi¬ 
tion, merely. 

It is not to be supposed that they could identify the honorable 
gentleman who so worthily tills the Speaker’s chair, with that 
Whig Governor of Hew Jersey whose broad seal was discarded 
by the Democrats of this House wdien they wished to usurp the 
Speakership of the House, and had not the votes to do it without 
rejecting the votes of the Hew Jersey members. They did not, 
but my constituents do know that fact; and they think that his 
elevation is a righteous rebuke, after long delay, for that usurpa¬ 
tion. They know—though it cannot be supposed the Legislature 
do—that the Governor of Hew Jersey, of that day, was a Whig 
in the day of Whig greatness. The gentlemen of the Legislature 
cannot be expected to know, but my constituents know, that Gen- 


9 


oral Taylor appointed to a high office, in his gift, the same dis¬ 
tinguished gentleman, and that, though the Senate of the United 
States unanimously confirmed him, he declined the honor. The 
gentlemen of this Legislature cannot he expected to know that 
Millard Fillmore, whose name at this day, in Maryland, stands 
second only to that of the immortal Clay, appointed him likewise 
to another high and responsible office, which he declined to ac¬ 
cept. Perhaps his contempt for office excites their indignation. 
They, of course, cannot be expected to know that the distin¬ 
guished gentleman to whom I refer is a Whig in his politics, now 
called a Republican, in favor of the enforcement of every law 
that any southern State has any interest in, and of that one in 
which Maryland, more than any other, has a direct and practical, 
not a political and party interest. The gentlemen of the Legisla¬ 
ture could not be expected to know—but my constituents know— 
that this honorable gentleman is sound on all thpse more practi¬ 
cal questions touching the protection of American industry and 
river and harbor improvements, in which they have so direct and 
deep an interest. They know full well that it is by the votes of 
such men we must secure the inauguration' of that policy, so es¬ 
sential to-the industrial interests of Maryland. 

The gentlemen of the Legislature may not know—but my con¬ 
stituents know—that above and beyond all other things, the gen¬ 
tleman whom I aided in elevating to the chair is of moderate 
views, in favor of silence on the slavery question, of putting an 
end to the internecine strife of sections that has raged for years; 
and, therefore, of all men the man to sit in that chair—at once 
the symbol and the pledge to the country of the peace that is be¬ 
fore us, if we will only not repel it. It is because my constitu¬ 
ents know and approve these things, that they approve my vote. 

I supposed that there would be clamor over that vote. I did 
not intend to trouble myself about it. I knew the quarter from 
which it was likely to come. I knew that the majority of the 
gentlemen of the Legislature would adopt some such resolution. 
I confess myself surprised that my own friends, excepting four 
of them, voted for it. I fear that in an evil hour some of them 
allowed themselves to be frightened. I suspect some of them 
were afraid that they should be called “ Abolitionists.” Subjected 
to the torture of voting against a resolution which was supposed 
to be in favor of southern rights, or of deserting a friend, they 
could not be expected to regard justice to me rather than safety 
to themselves. So every man took care of himself. Some voted 
for the resolutions who went through their election on my should- 
ders. They did not know that when they saw away the bough 
between themselves and the tree they must tall. (Laughter.) 
But, sir, it was a curious scene, that vote. The clerk called the 
name of an American in the Legislature once, and there was a 
pause; twice, and there was a shuffling; thrice, and there was a 
hesitating response. Then there was a period of blessed repose, 
when certain Democratic names were called and were responded 


10 


to with that earnestness with which Democrats always respond 
when aiming a blow at a political adversary. Then some unfor¬ 
tunate Americans were called upon to vote. The gentlemen 
stood first on one leg, and then on the other, in sad doubt on 
which to rest: gentlemen looked over their shoulders to see if 
there were not some dust of a coming reprieve: some rushed to 
inquire of friends whether they ought or ought not to vote for 
the resolution:—while there sat their inexorable and determined 
opponents, with their eyes glaring upon them and their mouths 
open, sure of their prey after the fluttering was over; and in 
they went. (Laughter.) The scene I am sure I should never 
have been able to describe had it not been for the .torture and 
agony which certain honorable gentlemen upon the other side of 
the House suffered when called upon to cast a patriotic vote for 
my friend from Horth Carolina. (Renewed laughter.) Sir, I ad¬ 
mire the audacity of the Maryland Democrat as much as I de¬ 
plore the weakness of the Maryland American. 

Mr. Chairman, I know that I have to meet—and I shall meet 
with all equanimity—all the obloquy that is attached to the course 
that I have felt it to be my duty to pursue ; and I know that so 
far as I am worth pursuing—a gentleman in the' Legislature had 
difficulties about passing the resolution for fear it should give me 
too much importance—so far as I am worth pursuing, I do not 
doubt that I shall be well hounded. I remember that a great 
many years ago, not this ILall, but the old Hall of Representa¬ 
tives, was the scene of a great struggle, which excited the coun¬ 
try at that day as much as the one through which v r e have just 
passed excited us in our day; and I remember, sir, that there 
was an illustrious individual who there found himself bound by 
his duty to the country to depart from his personal preferences, 
and, to some extent, from his political friends, and to cast a de¬ 
cisive vote for John Quincy Adams, of Massachusetts, for Presi¬ 
dent. And from that day to the day of his death, there was no 
time that the howl of “bargain and corruption” did not pursue 
him to his grave. Sir, I have sat at his feet and learned my po¬ 
litical principles. I can tread his path of political martyrdom. 
Before any cry of Legislatures or people I will not yield; they 
may pass over my prostrate body or my ruined reputation ; but 
step aside I will not to avoid either fate. I care not, sir, whether 
it be in one shape or another that the danger may come. I am 
aware that we all this day regard the negro question as that which 
is decisive, important, and controlling. There have been others 
at other times equally important, equally exciting, equally con¬ 
trolling. There have been Legislatures that have been anxious 
to strike down a political opponent. There have been timid con¬ 
stituencies who have deserted their Representatives for serving 
them too faithfully. There have been stormy constituencies which 
demanded humiliating things of their Representatives. The spe¬ 
cial trial of our day comes from the feverish excitement on the 
slavery question; and the despotic intolerance of any deviation 


11 


from the extremist views of either side. For myself, sir, on every 
question I mean to assert my independence, awed by no authority 
into .acts which I disapprove. 

“ Non civium ardor pra-ya jubentium, 

Mente quatit eolida —neque auxter ”— 

FTo, sir ; not even the south wind . Whether it relate to a matter 
of financial policy, or to a matter of sectional strife, no man is fit 
lor this place who is not willing to take his political life in his 
hand, and, without looking back, go forward on the line of what 
lie regards as right; and, sir, whether it relates to the material 
interests of my constituents, or to those great political interests 
which are supposed to be bound up with the existence of slavery 
in the slave States, I trust I shall never allow myself, by any 
clamor, or by any storm, however loud, or however fierce, for an 
instant to be made to veer from that course which strikes me to 
be right. I am not here merely as a member from the fourth 
congressional district of Maryland. I am not here merely to rep¬ 
resent the residue of the State of Maryland. I am not entitled 
to consult their prejudices asonty worthy of regard. I am bound 
to look to a wider constituency, to a higher duty. If my duty to 
that wider constituency can he made to promote the interests of 
my local constituency, then my duty to the two coincides. But, 
sir, in the great necessities of public life, there have been here¬ 
tofore, and there may be again, occasions on which 1 may be 
called upon, as other public men have heretofore been, to make 
the painful decision that the interest of the nation requires that 
I shall disregard the opinions, unanimous, firm, repeatedly-ex¬ 
pressed, of my constituency. I humbly pray, that that may not 
occur, but that, if it do, I shall have strength equal to the occa¬ 
sion; at least such now is.my resolution. 

Mr. Chairman, I had intended, but I have not time, to speak to 
one or two other points. (Cries of “Go on!”) I think that the 
spirit which lies at the bottom of the resolutions which the lower 
House of the. Legislature of Maryland in an evil hour has adopt¬ 
ed, is of sinister import to the people of this country. I wish, 
sir, I had time to develop how sinister it is. 

They w r ere extraordinary circumstances under which the elec¬ 
tion of Speaker took place, which is summarily condemned by 
that Legislature. We had met, and been struggling for eight 
weeks. I think. At the meeting of this session of Congress, an 
explosion of passion of revolutionary intensity—beyond anything 
it has been my fortune to see here or to read of outside of the 
revolutionary assemblies of Paris—greeted us upon our advent. 
One great body of gentlemen, evidently deeply in earnest, how¬ 
ever much I may deplore that earnestness, and however much I 
may think them in error in their estimate of the causes of their 
indignation, manifestly felt themselves to be upon the brink of 
great, decisive, and revolutionary events. One portion of this 
House, day after day, branded the Representatives of the great 
majority of the people of the free States as traitors to the country, 


12 


instigators of assassination, bent upon breaking up and destroying 
slavery in the States, carrying into tlie midst of our families the 
torch arid the knife of the assassin and incendiary. Great States, 
moved from their propriety, passed beyond what hitherto they 
had done, and adopted resolutions which, however moderate in 
their tone, looked revolutionary in their aspect, and must, in their 
execution, have been revolutionary. For the first time, I believe, 
in the history of the Government, a great and patriotic State was 
so deeply moved as to be forgetful of that clause of the Consti¬ 
tution which forbids the entering of one State into compacts or 
agreements with another, and to send one of her justly-distin¬ 
guished citizens to the capital of Virginia for the purpose of ar¬ 
ranging a common consultation among the southern States—not 
one of those conventions which from time to time have met under 
the usurped authority of a Governor ; not one of those commer¬ 
cial conventions which from time to time have been the result of 
a movement on the part of a certain portion of the southern peo¬ 
ple—but a mission assuming all the solemn forms of an embassy, 
speaking the tones of the last hour before the revolution breaks 
out, appealing to the people of Virginia, in their sovereign capa¬ 
city as represented in their Legislature, by reason of a melancholy 
event which had just transpired, to send delegates by law to a 
convention of States which, if it did anything, must assume the 
form and functions of that great revolutionary Congress which 
took the earlier steps to break the bonds that bound our fathers 
to the throne of Great Britain. 

I do not agree with those gentlemen as to the cause of that ex¬ 
citement. I profoundly regret the steps that those various Legis¬ 
latures thought fit to take, as much as I deplore the intense agita¬ 
tion of the popular mind which tolerated or favored their adop¬ 
tion. But, sir, I stand here sworn to support the Constitution of 
these United States—not of any other confederacy which a future 
sun may rise upon—to support the Constitution of these* United 
States; and, under these circumstances, was it to be expected, or 
did the people of Maiyland expect, that their Bepresentative 
here should, when his vote would elevate to the Speaker’s chair 
a gentleman, personally and politically, in every way, so far as I 
am acquainted with his character and previous conduct, a symbol 
of peace—of peaceHo those very States that were, so excited and 
revolutionary in their measures—that I should allow the oppor¬ 
tunity to pass of placing that olive branch where men all over 
this wide land could see it? Or, sir, to take another alternative, 
if the dire day must come that peaceful secession shall be attempt¬ 
ed, and it shall be found that peaceful secession means the arrest 
of the United States marshal in the execution of his office, the 
driving of the United States judge from the seat of justice; the 
taking possession of the custom-houses of the United States; the 
arresting the execution of all the laws of the United States, sir, 
was it in accordance with niy duty here to allow this Government 
to be caught in circumstances so grave, in a crisis so imminent, 


13 


without a House of Representatives competent to sanction meas¬ 
ures which then might be necessary? Was it not a still higher 
duty to avert the very possibility of collisions so disastrous, by 
removing the apprehensions which might precipitate them ? And 
how could that be so well accomplished as by the elevation to 
the contested chair of a gentleman whose previous political re¬ 
lations, whose known character for moderation, whose opinions 
on the most vexed and delicate questions of an administrative 
character touching the sensitive interests of the slave States, 
whose gra} r hairs, crowning a long life of honor, all gave assur¬ 
ance to those who looked with undefined apprehension to a differ¬ 
ent result of the contest for Speaker, that under his auspices there 
might be peace; that at least there is time for reflection ; that at 
least there is an hour before strife, when men may pause and be¬ 
come cool ? 

The honorable the House of Delegates thought otherwise. 
Such considerations were wholly beneath their view, that anar¬ 
chy had better reign than that any one called by the name of 
Republican should be elected Speaker; than that the people of 
Maryland should see the sad example of the whole body of the 
Republican Representatives uniting to elect a gentleman known 
and formally declared, in their hearing, to favor the enforcement 
of every law, and the protection of every interest /hey are rep¬ 
resented to be bent on destroying; nay, for the overthrow and 
ruin of which their very party is pronounced a conspiracy. 

Sir, there is no act of my life I less regret, none more defensi¬ 
ble on high and statesmanlike reasons; none where the event has 
more promptly indicated its wisdom. Even now its fruits are, if 
I mistake not, visible. The people are relapsing into repose in 
the country. Chafed passions explode less violently in the House. 

I trust that now the calmer judgment of the other side of the 
House will modify their views heretofore expressed, and limit 
and soften the sweeping judgment which impeached a whole po¬ 
litical party of conspiracy to promote servile insurrection. 

I think they will be inclined to take a somewhat different view 
of the origin, the character, and the scope of John Brown’s crime. 

It was no invasion of Virginia at all; still less an invasion of 
Virginia by or fyom a free State. It was a conspiracy to free 
negroes; arrested in the attempt; defended with arms; stained 
with murder, and punished with death. It was a crime to- be 
dealt with by judge and jury and sheriff. 

The utmost vigilance of two governments has failed to trace a 
single connection with any body of men in any State. Two of 
Brown’s confederates were arrested in Pennsylvania without war¬ 
rant, and carried without a guard to jail in Virginia, llis arsenal 
contained two hundred Sharpe’s rifled and something over a 
thousand pikes; lvis army consisted of about twenty men, such 
were the means providedHy eighteen millions of people for the 
invasion of ten millions; for though rumor promised him succor, 
no one ever saw a body of men or a single man marching to 


14 


join him or to rescue him. Not a slave joined him volunta¬ 
rily; not one lifted his hand against his master; all were anx¬ 
ious to return to the bosom of their master’s families. 

Atrocious as was the crime, and great as is the cause I have to 
deplore some of the best blood shed, that crime has revealed a 
state of fact and of feeling, both among our own population and 
that of the free States, on which our eyes ought to rest with sat- 
sfaction, in view of the future. 

It negatives the existence of any conspiracy against our peace 
in the free States of the Confederacy. Neither the plan nor the 
execution revealed any higher intelligence or greater power 
behind the crazy enthusiasts who acted in the tragedy. To lay 
this blood at the door of a great political party of our fellow-citi¬ 
zens, who now control the government of every free State except 
two, in spite of the indignant denial of all their Representatives 
here, and without a particle of proof in fact, is not reasonable. 
It is to call Dirk Hatterick’s defence, in his lair, an invasion of 
Scotland ! It is to lay the bloody deeds of Balfour of Burleigh 
on the whole body of the Protestants in Scotland! 

But the keenness with which gentlemen feel this crime against 
the peace of a slave State may well enable them to appreciate 
how the more aggravated events in Kansas inflamed the minds 
of men in4.be free States, and fired the fanaticism of Brown to 
the point of bloody revenge. 

That men and women of like mind, in whom, on one subject, 
the ideas of right and wrong are sadly disordered, sympathized 
with the convicts; that some papers applauded his deed, and 
some pulpits echoed his eulogy, are certainly symptoms of no 
sound state of morals in the actors ; but they are of no political 
significance in the populous North. On this floor they have no 
representative. That bloody type of fanaticism is, of all tilings, 
most rare among the Abolitionists; and they are a body of enthu¬ 
siasts who have never, to my knowledge, had ten Representatives 
in this Hall. But, to sympathize with a criminal, to pity a convict, 
to consider the conviction an expiation, and the execution a 
martyrdom, is too common at this day to excite surprise in any 
case. Even with the ministers of religion, the ascent to the scaf¬ 
fold is Jacob’s ladder—the gallows is the very gate of heaven.; 
and the old formula of pax et misericordia is changed for one in 
the spirit, if not in the words, of Edgeworth, “Son of St. Louis, 
ascend to Heaven!” 

I dwell on these matters the more, because they have been 
made the occasion of exaggerated inferences and the proofs of 
unfounded fears, which a more thorough or a cooler contemplation 
of the manifestations of thought and feeling in our free American 
society will dispel. I seek for signs of peace. I will explore 
every region for ground of returning confidence. I think there 
is no ground for the excitement which has prevailed. I think 
the longer gentlemen look at the facts, they will the more surely 


15 


see that their feelings led them to extremes which they will not 
he inclined to repeat. 

In this spirit, I feel sure they will now be inclined to accept the 
formal declaration of the gentleman from Ohio, who was the first 
candidate of the northern Opposition for Speaker, at its full value 
and scope: 

“I say now, that there is not a single question agitating the public mind; not a 
single topic on which there can he sectional jealous}^ or sectional controversy, un¬ 
less gentlemen on the other side of the House thrust such subjects on us. I repeat, 
not a single question.” 

He so spoke while a candidate; and had he said exactly the op¬ 
posite, there is not a gentleman on the Administration side of the 
House who would not have rung it in the ears of his constituents as 
die authorized and formal avowal by the Republican candidate of 
all his enemies impute to his party. But being a declaration of 
peace, instead of one of war, shall we impeach its faith that our 
fears may not subside ? or ought we not rather to read this text— 
authoritatively spoken in the presence of the gentlemen whose 
candidate he was, and who sanctioned it by their continued sup¬ 
port for nearly two months afterwards—by the light of that mag¬ 
nificent oration of his distinguished colleague, (Mr. Corwin,) 
which won the heart of every hearer by its genial and compre¬ 
hensive spirit, and inaugurated in this Hall, after the silence of 
years, the example of great parliamentary eloquence? 

These declarations are reiterated assurances that there is no in¬ 
tention of invading the rights or quiet of any slaveholding State ; 
that there is no design or desire to tamper with or trouble slavery 
where it exists; that they are willing to let the subject alone, if 
others are willing to let things stand as they are. 

Are declarations like these to be encountered and outweighed 
by the irresponsible clamors of scattered newspapers, by trumpery 
resolutions at excited town meetings, or by the ambiguous, con¬ 
tradictory, and shifting platforms hastily contrived for an emer¬ 
gency, and then forgotten ? It was one of Mr. Calhoun’s profound 
and sagacious remarks, that there was a strong tendency to con¬ 
found the machinery of parties with formal bodies known to the 
law ; and to treat the latter like the former. The debates of this 
session have been one perpetual illustration of its. truth. They 
have repeated here the discussions of the hustings, dealt here 
with the contrivances of party warfare, and invoked such proofs 
to repel and annul the formal representations of the constitutional 
Representatives of the people, touching their purposes. 

I invoke gentlemen to accept the declaration of the legal Rep¬ 
resentative, touching the purposes of the people who Vent? him 
here to represent them in that very thing. Men may clamor, 
partisans may propose, papers may print a thousand things, and 
no one care to explain or contradict them. For no one is re¬ 
sponsible for them. Silence is no consent; it is mere indifference 
or contempt. It is the conduct of the Representative to which 
the people look, when they would know if they were truly repre- 


sented; and it is to that Representative we should look when we 
wish to know the spirit and policy his constituents contemplate. 

There will always be more or less of that vague dissertation on 
impractical theories; such as the possibility of property in man, 
or whether slavery be hateful to God, and the like; and those 
views will always have, as they have heretofore had, their eight 
or ten Representatives on this floor; but surely we can afford to 
leave such dissertations unanswered ; and without an answer they j 
will soon die out. Politically, they are of no decisive importance, 
and involve no such danger as to keep gentlemen always on the 
alert with a response. But the records display the purposes of 
parties in the Government; and if we there investigate the signs 
of the times, we will hod, I think, that from 1855 to this time, - 
there has been no single bill proposed contemplating a change in 
the condition of affairs touching slavery as it existed before'the 
repeal of the Missouri line. I had meant to develop that as a 
word of peace; but I have not time. The first controversy of 
the Thirty-Fourth Congress related to the seat of the Delegate 
from Kansas. The first bill was to repeal the laws of Kansas 
passed by the Legislature whose legality was contested. The 
next was Mr. Dunn’s statesmanlike bill to reorganize the Terri¬ 
tory of Kansas. The third was to admit Kansas under the Topeka 
constitution. The fourth was to abolish the existing laws, and to 
reorganize the Territory of Kansas, without one word of slavery 
on one side or the other; and you know very well, gentlemen, 
that at the last Congress no proposition was entertained, except¬ 
ing the' question, which you argued and which we argued, wheth¬ 
er we had a right to remit to the people the Lecompton constitu¬ 
tion, to be decided upon by the people who were to be bound by 
it. Up to this time, while there has been excitement at the North 
and at the South ; while gentlemen have made offensive speeches 
here and elsewhere, there has been no measure of practical legis¬ 
lation proposed in this House that has not been defensive in its 
character; not one that has looked beyond retaining the Terri¬ 
tories free which were already free. 

We have, then, peace before us, if we will only accept it. The 
free States ask no- new law. Their Representatives tell us there 
will he no sectional questions mooted by them unless forced on 
them by others; and if we close with such declarations in the 
spirit of the declaration of the honorable gentleman from Ohio, 
and of the patriotic speech of his distinguished colleague, we may 
banish* frjifri <my vminds those Ur gorgons, hydras, and chimeras 
dire,” amid whose hideous forms we have so long pursued our 
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